Global education: Looking beyond the local public school

Forget getting on the school bus. This fall, kids are heading to the airport for an enriched high school, even middle school education overseas. They’ll learn French while living with a Parisian family. They’ll study Canadian history while overlooking the trenches at Vimy Ridge. They’ll exercise by hiking through northern Indian mountains.

Global education is one of the hottest trends, says Erin McLaughlin, communications specialist at Our Kids Media, which helps families find resources for private schools. “We’ve seen more travel abroad programs over the last few years,” she says. “[Schools] want to encourage students to become global citizens…and to interact with as many different communities as possible.”

But a global education comes at a cost, one that many Canadians might balk at.

A five-month foreign exchange stay in Argentina, for example, starts at $5,600 through Youth Educational Services Canada (YES Canada). Meanwhile, it costs more than $33,000 a year to board a middle school student at Scotland’s Kilgraston Boarding School for Girls and more than $55,000 for a year at Switzerland’s Neuchatel Junior College.

But parents and students argue that the experience is priceless.

“The appreciation for travel changes a person,” says Joe Scali, a 50-year-old police officer based in Parry Sound, Ont. His daughter, Erin, was 16 when she went to Italy for 10 months through YES Canada. “It broadens the mind. You can’t put a price on that.”

Erin saved $13,500 on her own to pay for the experience (she worked a year and a half at Dairy Queen and used other savings). Her parents gave her $4,000 for the flight and other incidentals.

“We could’ve used it on university,” Mr. Scali says. “But it was truly a blessing for her and for us.”

He wanted Erin to connect with her roots, a common motivation when choosing a foreign school. Several of the Canadian students at Woodstock School, the oldest international boarding school in Asia which is nestled in the northern mountains of India, are of Indian descent. “The kids are first-generation Canadians, and [the parents] have sent the kids here to maintain their Indian link, as well as for the enriching experience,” said Ed Beavan, a communications associate at the school. Annual fees begin at about $16,000 for Grades 1 to 6.

Rohan Kumar left for Woodstock when he was 12. “Of course, I initially turned down the suggestion of applying to the school. I was twelve years old and I was being asked to go to a boarding school halfway across the world, to live independent from family, and submerge myself into a new culture,” the 18-year-old Toronto native says. His father is a director at a Canadian mining company.

“The tuition fees for Woodstock hover around $20,000 per year…But you are truly getting more than just an education here. It is worth every penny.”

Related

Parents are also inspired by their own international academic experiences. David Tait, a Montreal father of two, put money aside every year for about eight years to send his two children to Neuchatel where he attended in 1970. (Almost all of the 90 students who attend Neuchatel every year are Canadian.)

“I figured if they don’t [attend]. I’ll help them with university,” said Mr. Tait. “If I had not have gone, I wouldn’t of known to put money aside. But knowing that I loved it so much…everything clicked that year.”

A global education may be worthwhile for the experience; however, a trip alone won’t get you into a better university.

“Those types of trips sometimes parents feel are a resume builder if students are applying to highly competitive universities; they think the two weeks in Africa building a school is going to help leverage their kid into Harvard,” says Judy Libman, a Toronto educational consultant specializing in post-secondary education. “One of the values of those trips is taking students outside of their comfort zone. Children of privilege, moving them outside of their comfort zone and getting them into an environment where they have to think about what they’re experiencing — that has an internal usefulness; but it’s not for the resume.”

For students who dream of jet-setting but don’t have the funds, scholarships and bursaries as well as “study abroad” loans are available. They can also fund raise through family or via social media. “The modern student has to get creative with ways of funding the travel experiences that they want. We have an entity of ours called Fund My Travel which is an online crowd-sourcing platform geared towards meaningful travel,” said Tiffany Harrison, an outreach manager at GoAbroad.com which services mostly Canadian and U.S. users looking for international learning and volunteering experiences.

Now, if we look at higher education, the costs can be heftier the farther you go from home.

In 2010, about 10% of students receiving Canada Student Loans chose to study outside their home province or territory or abroad. It’s worth noting that many Canadian universities offer its students credit to study at partner universities abroad for a term or more.

Katie Johnston’s three years of post-secondary education at the New England Culinary Institute in Vermont cost the Johnstons about $64,000. Their second daughter Stacey spent a year at the Make-Up Designory in Burbank, California, which cost $32,000. Extra expenses included flight, accommodations and food.

Fortunately, the Johnston’s had been saving in an RESP for years and had amassed more than $200,000 for their daughters.

“There’s no better education to go somewhere else than where you live,” says her mother, Rosemary Johnston, who operates Penrose Fish and Chips in Toronto.

“It broadens your horizons. It helps you see how other people cope. It opens your mind.”

The experience abroad was well spent, Mrs. Johnston says. Katie’s first internship was at North 44 with Toronto’s Mark McEwan and then with Barbara Lynch, the famed chef of several Boston restaurants. She was eventually hired by Chef Lynch.

Almost Done!

Postmedia wants to improve your reading experience as well as share the best deals and promotions from our advertisers with you. The information below will be used to optimize the content and make ads across the network more relevant to you. You can always change the information you share with us by editing your profile.

By clicking "Create Account", I hearby grant permission to Postmedia to use my account information to create my account.

I also accept and agree to be bound by Postmedia's Terms and Conditions with respect to my use of the Site and I have read and understand Postmedia's Privacy Statement. I consent to the collection, use, maintenance, and disclosure of my information in accordance with the Postmedia's Privacy Policy.

Postmedia wants to improve your reading experience as well as share the best deals and promotions from our advertisers with you. The information below will be used to optimize the content and make ads across the network more relevant to you. You can always change the information you share with us by editing your profile.

By clicking "Create Account", I hearby grant permission to Postmedia to use my account information to create my account.

I also accept and agree to be bound by Postmedia's Terms and Conditions with respect to my use of the Site and I have read and understand Postmedia's Privacy Statement. I consent to the collection, use, maintenance, and disclosure of my information in accordance with the Postmedia's Privacy Policy.